1. Field of the Invention
The present inventions relate to a highly efficient seed planting system for farmers who plant multiple kinds of crops each with accurately spaced individual seeds arranged in a specific predetermined pattern in a seed receiving medium such as ground soil. The system is compact, easily changeable, mobile, simple, reliable, accurate, serviceable, flexible and comprises a method and apparatus including a seed selector, a seed distributor, a planting member, a transport apparatus and a timing mechanism.
2. Description of Objects and Related Art
For farmers with smaller acreages, being able to produce a maximum amount of different kinds of agricultural products efficiently in a minimum required growing acreage and at a very low total cost including labor, materials and investments in plant and equipment provides a clear advantage to growers and is their goal. To achieve those objectives requires simple, flexible, accurate, reliable and serviceable equipment and a method that delivers undamaged seeds in a predetermined pattern. This is especially true with regard to planting, where it all begins. Here timing of the planting is critical and with unpredictable weather and soil conditions, a grower of multiple types of plants must have flexible equipment that can be quickly readied for whatever crop is ready to plant.
Also, great flexibility of crop planting apparati and methods is required for growers planting many different types of crops where each crop has its own sizes and shapes of seeds and unique predetermined patterns of planting. Each crop has its own growing “window” that requires seeds be planted during specific soil and weather conditions that are generally unpredictable and require fast action on the part of the grower to work within the growing “windows”.
Where a variety of crops are to be planted efficiently during each crop's different growing “window”, flexibility and ability to change equipment rapidly and efficiently is critical for maximum yield and efficiencies of operation and hence to success for the grower. Flexibility requires a crop planting system that can be easily attached and transported behind a motive means such as a tractor or tiller and where the seed selector is easily and quickly changeable to accommodate seeds of different sizes and shapes and to be able to reliably, safely and efficiently plant undamaged seeds in specific predetermined patterns.
Flexibility also may encompass being able to plant different sized and shaped seeds for different crops at the same time; each in different patterns and to do it accurately and reliably. Accuracy of spacing and avoidance of missing seeds at each seed holding point is critical for maximum yield. Correct planting depth and the ability to include nutrients, insecticides, etc. is important to achieving optimum emergence and yield.
Efficiency derives from, among other things, the method of being able to consistently select a predetermined array of individual seeds from a seed supply hopper having loose seeds therein and plant the seed in an easily and quickly variable predetermined pattern, which pattern includes a spaced apart longitudinal relationship to other seeds along a row with precision and in lateral relationship to seeds in adjacent rows. Moreover all of the foregoing must be accurate regardless of the speed and direction of the planting apparatus.
Further, in planting a plurality of parallel rows at the same time, the spacing in each row should be in predetermined increments to achieve predetermined density for the type of crop being grown under different seasonal conditions and in the type of soil in which it is planted.
Patents exemplifying the prior art have been found which show certain individual aspects of the invention however none provide or suggest using these aspects in the efficient, inexpensive and flexible combination as set forth by the present invention. Thus, in the past, to the inventor's knowledge, there have been many approaches to planting seeds in spaced rows in the ground by means of purely mechanical devices as shown for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,444,130, 4,533,066, 5,058,766 and 5,359,948 wherein each discloses generally selecting seeds by moving them under the action of gravity into pockets or recesses from which they are moved and dispensed into the ground. Each are complicated, relatively inflexible devices dedicated to a generally limited size of seed that would be difficult to quickly change to accommodate another size or another pattern of seeds. Moreover each appears to suffer from the possibility of seed damage such as shear and limited accuracy.
Other patents disclose the addition of vacuum to handle seeds. Examples of such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,788,518; 4,145,980; 4,306,509; 4,449,642; 4,688,698; 4,703,704; 4,718,363; 5,170,909; 5,465,869; 5,601,209; 6,109,193; 6,142,086, 6,516,733 and 6,520,111 include discs, fingers or drums in which vacuum is used for attracting and holding seeds however these are complex, relatively inflexible or relate to tabletop and food applications and are expensive to operate and maintain while still not providing the many advantages of the present invention.